FAQ

Virgil is the AI editorial assistant in Finis. Open its tab beside the page to ask questions about your book, get a second reading, draft a document synopsis or try a variant of a selected passage. You decide whether and how to use the responses.

DeepSeek, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini and Grok (xAI), with your own API keys. Choose a different model for Ask, Reread, Synopsis and Variant, even from different services. Catalogs come from your connected services; access and compatibility depend on the model and your account.

Virgil’s features are part of Finis, but API usage is separate, under the plan of the service you connect with your key. The 14-day trial and the one-time unlock do not include AI credit.

No. Before Send, you can check the selected texts and the receiving service. Ask finds relevant chapters locally; notes and references aren’t added automatically. The first request to each service requires your consent. Keys stay in the Keychain of the device you enter them on; texts you send are subject to the chosen service’s terms.

Yes. Virgil is optional and you can turn it off in Settings. You don’t need to connect an AI service to write, organize, revise or export your book.

In the Library, the page Finis starts from, New… creates a project from a template (Novel, Essay or Thesis, Empty) in the projects folder; at the bottom, Explore Finis opens Pride and Prejudice, a complete project to explore. Library holds the projects and files you chose to keep, wherever they are; Recents, those you opened lately, and the + adds them to the Library.

Finis is on iPad too, with iPadOS 18 or later: it is the same app on the App Store. The 14-day trial and the unlock cover Mac and iPad with the same Apple Account: you never buy it twice.

Projects in the Finis folder in iCloud Drive appear on both: a chapter written on the Mac reopens on the iPad, and the other way round, in the same format. The Library is the same too: what is only on one of them shows in grey on the other, and Move to iCloud Drive takes it where both can see it. A project kept elsewhere opens on the iPad from Open from Files…, by choosing it in the Files app.

Finis is for Mac and iPad: there is no iPhone version.

Virgil is on iPad too, with the same services. Your API key stays in the Keychain of the device you enter it on and does not sync: on the iPad, enter it again in Settings › Virgil.

File › Import from Scrivener… brings a .scriv project into Finis: the manuscript goes into the book with its parts, chapters and scenes, the rest into Notes, with synopses, statuses, labels, notes and comments. File › Import from Word… brings in the chapters of a .docx, with italics, footnotes and comments. File › Import from TextBundle… brings in the texts Ulysses, Bear or iA Writer export as TextBundle or TextPack, with their images; a book that arrives as one text splits into chapters with Split at Headings, from the sidebar’s Control-click menu. In the Library, New… makes a project straight from any of them. One ⌘Z in the sidebar removes everything that came in.

A project is a folder with the .finis extension: inside, every document is a Markdown file (.md) that any text app can open. Order, statuses and tags are in the hidden .finis folder. In the Finder, right-click the project › Show Package Contents.

Like every Mac App Store app, Finis opens only the folders you choose. The first time it opens a project or the projects folder it asks; then it remembers.

It lasts 14 days, with every feature, and starts when you choose it in the Library or in Finis › Unlock Finis…. At the end, if you don’t unlock Finis, your projects still open, read, export and stay in the backups, but can’t be edited.

Finis › Unlock Finis…: a single purchase, forever, no subscription. On another Mac or an iPad with the same Apple Account, or after reinstalling the app, use Restore Purchases in the same panel; on the iPad, the panel opens from Settings.

Finis copies every project once a day and every time it closes, keeping the last 14 daily and 8 weekly copies. File › Restore from Backup… opens a copy as a new project, where you choose, next to the original by default; on the iPad, always next to the original.

File › Export Book… (⇧⌘E): Word, manuscript or book PDF, ePub, HTML and Markdown, with a preview before saving. The manuscript follows the book’s language: Italian cartelle, the German Normseite, the French feuillet, standard manuscript format in English. For a single chapter, right-click it in the sidebar › Export…; for paper, File › Print… (⌘P).

A project is a folder: you can keep it in iCloud Drive or another synced folder. If a document changes outside Finis, Finis reloads it; if it changes in two places at once, it keeps both versions. Better not to write in the same project from two devices at the same time.